


the end of some things

by ladymedraut



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Post-Battle of Five Armies, i will forever be salty that dis never gets the page/screen time she deserved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:29:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21996787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladymedraut/pseuds/ladymedraut
Summary: After the Battle of Five Armies, Dís reflects on what she has lost and where her path leads now.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	the end of some things

Their bodies looked so small laid out on the twin biers, swaddled in armor far too heavy for them. Dís gently wiped the last of the blood from Kíli’s face and choked back tears as she set to work braiding his hair for the last time.

Fíli and Kíli. Her sons. Gone.

It was a good thing that her fingers remembered the pattern of twists and knots, because her eyes were blinded by a sudden flood of water and her mind was weighed down by the memory of the other dwarf whose hair she had braided this evening.

Thorin. Her brother. Gone.

If only she had been a little faster. If only she had been at the heart of the battle with them.

_Then you would be dead too,_ whispered a little voice in her head, but Dís shoved it savagely away.

Her family was gone, and not all the gold in the world could bring them back.

But this had been about more than gold, hadn’t it? Dís had seen the maps, heard the rumors, done the calculations. The orcs were massing again. The forges of Gundabad were lit. The shadow was drawing closer. They had staved it off for a short time, but this reprieve would not last forever.

Dís pinned the last of Kíli’s hair into place and moved on to Fíli, flashes of what could have been chasing themselves around her head. Fíli with a golden crown on his head and the Arkenstone in his hand, King Under the Mountain after Thorin. Kíli with a prince’s circlet around his brows, laughter creasing his face. Fíli at the great forge deep in the heart of the mountain. Kíli on one of the shaggy mountain ponies with Thorin’s old harp slung across his back. Herself, watching them grow old.

_Erebor is yours_ , Dáin Ironfoot had said to her when they laid her sons on the biers. _You are the last of Thr ór’s line, Queen Under The Mountain._

_I do not want Erebor,_ she had spat. _I want my sons back._

_The Mountain needs a ruler._

_Then let it be you, D áin. I have no wish to sit in judgment over others. _

Fíli’s hair was fine and golden between her fingers. She had plaited hair like that into funeral braids once before, there on the shores of Mirrormere before the eastern gates of Khazad-Dûm…

Dís dashed the tears from her eyes and stuffed the memories of Frerin, her brother who had perished so long ago, back into the dark recesses of her mind where they slept. And then, slowly, methodically, she took her memories of Fíli and Kíli and Thorin and locked them in the same corner.

By the time she was done with her eldest son, Dís felt strangely light. She gazed out at the three biers without really seeing their occupants, then turned on her heel and made her way up, up, up to the highest levels of Erebor where the halls narrowed to tunnels scarcely wider than her shoulders. Smaug had never bothered to roam this high in the mountain. There were no gems up here, no great treasures, only a long, dark corridor leading to a small, nondescript room.

The remains of the oaken door crumbled beneath Dís’ touch, and she stepped into her old chambers.

The cobwebs were thick on the walls, the tapestries crumbling into dust, the four-poster bed broken and moth-eaten. There was the chair, still fallen where she had flung it in her haste to rise and run when she had heard the dragon. There were the iron shutters, still hanging ajar from where she had never closed them. There was the chest where she had kept her most prized possessions.

Dís knelt in front of the chest, heedless of the dirt and grime that clung to her skirt, and drew out the ring of keys she had kept on her belt for as long as she could remember. The little silver key was still there.

It slid into the lock with a sharp _click_.

Everything was still there. Her golden harp, a miniature of Thorin’s. Hand-me-down tunics and trousers from Frerin. The first hair-clasp she had ever made, beautiful in its clumsiness. A pair of daggers her father had given her for her birthday. A necklace of mithril that had belonged to her mother. The anvil and hammer she used to play with. A wooden sword. A raven feather.

“Dís,” croaked a voice from the window.

She thought she had all but forgotten that voice. “Bryn,” she said, slowly turning around. “I thought you were dead.”

“Raven live long time. Bryn wait.” The big black bird cocked his head to the side and studied Dís with his sharp, beady eyes. “Bryn wait long time.”

“Bryn,” Dís choked out, her legs buckling beneath her as she sank to the dusty floor. Of all the things she had expected to find in the Mountain, her childhood companion was the last. It had been a long, long time since Dís had found the orphaned raven fledgling lost inside the citadel. She had cupped his tiny body in her hands and cradled him close to her heart as she brought him back to Ravenhill and Carc, the raven chieftain, who had told her that the little bird’s parents had been missing for over a week but the fledgling would be looked after by the rest of the rookery. Much to Dís’ surprise, the little black bird appeared on her windowsill the next day. She returned him to a very flustered Carc, who promised it wouldn’t happen again. Three days and three trips to Ravenhill later, Carc gave up and surrendered the fledgling into her care.

Dís and Bryn had been inseparable ever since. The dwarven princess and her raven. The only time she ever remembered Grandfather Thrór smiling at her was when she had walked into the throne room with Bryn on her shoulder to greet the delegation of dwarves from the Iron Hills.

_A sign,_ they had whispered. _A sign._

Dwarves had always respected ravens, those wily tricksters of the sky whose love for gold almost rivaled that of the dwarves. They lived side by side, the ravens acting as scouts and messengers and the dwarves providing them with protection and decorations for their rookeries. But in all the years that the dwarves of Erebor and the ravens of Ravenhill had lived together, they had always lived apart. Never before had one of the birds decided to forsake his kin for the mountain. What was more, it turned out that Bryn was one of the ravens capable of intelligent speech.

“Bryn miss Dís,” the raven croaked, flapping on wings unsteady with age to perch on her shoulder once again as he had so long ago and tug playfully at her braids.

“I—I missed you too.” She stroked his ragged feathers and he closed his eyes, leaning into her hand.

Bryn bent down to peck at the clothes on her lap. “Dís change. Bryn wait.”

“Why—” Dís started to ask, looking down at the contents of her trunk, when all of a sudden the answer flashed across her mind. For the first time since she had seen her sons’ bodies cooling on the battlefield, perhaps for the first time since fleeing Erebor in her childhood, Dís knew what path she would take next.

First the skirt and the blouse had to go. All her jewelry, everything that might possibly be used to identify her as one of Durin’s line except the ring Thrór had given her, went into a pile on the floor. Her boots she kept, but she took Frerin’s old tunic and trousers. Then came her mother’s mithril shirt, then one of Thorin’s old blue jackets trimmed with grey wolf fur. Next came Thrain’s daggers, one into each boot, another at her waist, and the last two strapped to her wrists. The sword Balin and Dwalin had given her for her tenth birthday was buckled around her waist, and then she threw her old winter cloak around her shoulders and picked up the harp.

“Let us go, Bryn.” The raven cawed in delight and alighted on her shoulder again.

Dwarf and raven drifted through the shadows of Erebor, down and down and down a hundred flights of stairs, but Dís never slowed her relentless pace.

“Lady Dís!” Balin called out as she swept through the empty throne room. “Where are you going?”

Dís paused for a moment, studying the old, white-bearded dwarf. “Into the wild,” she replied as the raven launched himself from her shoulder and soared out of the mountain, Dís following close behind.

* * *

And after that, Dís vanished from the annals of men and dwarves alike. During the War of the Ring, it was said that she fought at her kinsman Dáin Ironfoot’s side and they stood together like twin pillars of stone at the gates of Erebor, and some say she fell at his side.

And yet there are others who say Dís did not fall at the Battle of Dale.

They say she rallied the dwarves to Dáin’s son, Thorin Stonehelm, and took up the fallen banner of the men of Dale. They say she led a great charge against the Easterlings, smashing into their flanks like a hammer until at last they were defeated and Erebor freed. But they also say that none could find her when the battle was won.

So perhaps it was not Dís who broke the strength of the Easterlings, for even the dwarves are wont to admit that there is little difference between their menfolk and womenfolk, and in the midst of battle one can easily be mistaken for the other. And Dís was not the only dwarf woman who fought that day.

But after the War of the Ring, after the coronation of King Elessar, there were always stories. Stories of an old dwarf whose hair and beard were white as snow, but whose clear hazel eyes were yet keen and sharp. She never stayed in one place for long, her weary feet forever upon the road, and she would tell the most wondrous stories of Erebor, in the old days when Thrór was King Under the Mountain, or of Thorin Oakenshield’s great quest, or of the adventures of the two young dwarves called Fíli and Kíli.

**Author's Note:**

> My computer tells me I wrote this back in 2015 and never posted it. Whoops. Can you tell I have a bad habit of doing that, then clearing out old folders and posting things years later?


End file.
